Rabies dikategorikan sebagai salah satu “neglected disease“, yang bermakna penyakit yang kurang diperhatikan belakangan ini. Korban meninggal infeksi rabies mencapai 60.000 jiwa per tahunnya, dan sebagian dari mereka adalah anak-anak. Mungkin tidak tampak banyak dibandingkan jumlah penduduk dunia yang mencapai milyaran, tapi tetap saja memerlukan perhatian kita semua. Rabies merupakan penyakit zoonotik yang disebabkan oleh virus. Menyebar pada manusia melalui kontak dengan material yang terinfeksi, umumnya melalui saliva (ludah) dari gigitan atau cakaran hewan. Anjing merupakan sumber penularan terbanyak, dan penyebab kematian pada manusia akibat rabies terbesar. Dan kasus fatal banyak terjadi, sekitar 95%, di Afrika dan Asia, termasuk Indonesia di dalamnya. Rabies dapat dicegah, terutama di daerah-daerah yang endemis rabies, atau memiliki populasi anjing sebagai hewan domestik yang cukup besar.
The most cost-effective strategy for preventing rabies in people is by eliminating rabies in dogs through vaccination. Vaccination of animals (mostly dogs) has reduced the number of human (and animal) rabies cases in several countries, particularly in Latin America. However, recent increases in human rabies deaths in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America suggest that rabies is re-emerging as a serious public health issue. Preventing human rabies through control of domestic dog rabies is a realistic goal for large parts of Africa and Asia, and is justified financially by the future savings of discontinuing post-exposure prophylaxis for people. – WHO.
Pendekatan paling rasional saat ini adalah melalui vaksinasi terhadap hewan-hewan yang menjadi sumber penularan rabies. Karena dengan ini kasus kematian akibat rabies dapat ditekan jumlahnya; apalagi mengingat 4 dari 10 kematian akibat rabies terjadi pada anak-anak; sesuatu yang bisa menyelamatkan generasi penerus kita.
Memang banyak pihak yang berupaya mengambil jalan pintas seperti memusnahkan hewan-hewan yang berpotensi menyebarkan rabies. Tapi praktek ini sudah dipandang tidak manusiawi lagi, terutama jika kita mengacu pada hak-hak hewan. Maka dari itu harapan terbesar terletak para pemilik binatang peliharaan seperti anjing ini untuk memiliki kesadaran memvaksinasi hewan peliharaan mereka. Dan jika banyak anjing liar, maka kesadaran warga sekitar dalam membantu proses vaksinasi akan menjadi senjata utama menekan kasus rabies. Untuk informasi lebih lengkap tentang rabies, Anda bisa menemukannya di halaman-halaman berikut:
- Dalam negeri: Subdit Pengendalian Zoonis, Direktorat Pengendalian Penyakit Bersumber Binatang, Ditjen PP dan PL. Telp: (021) 4266270 / 4201255 / 4247608 ext. 151.
- Luar negeri: Global Alliance for Rabies Control: http://rabiesalliance.org/.
Jangan lupa bahwa setiap tanggal 28 Oktober diperingati sebagai Hari Rabies Sedunia, ini menjadi momen yang baik untuk menilai kembali bagaimana keamanan lingkungan tempat tinggal terkait dengan potensi infeksi rabies, baik bagi hewan peliharaan yang ada atau pun bagi masyarakat sendiri.
Bhyllabus - l'énigme 
kalau di transisi demografi, penyakit ini masuknya ke fase berapa mas? soalnya saya jarang mendengar orang di sekitar saya yang kena infeksi rabies sekarang
SukaSuka
Saya rasa riwayatnya sudah ada sejak dulu, mungkin termasuk salah satu penyakit paling tua dalam sejarah manusia.
Bisa dibaca di: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Rabies/2ColumnSubPage/STEL02_164616.html atau buku yang menarik untuk itu ada di: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/19/157049292/terrible-virus-fascinating-history-in-rabid 🙂 – Happy hunting.
SukaSuka
kalau penyakit rabies ini kalau di dalam transisi demografi masukknya di tahap berapa mas? pada zaman dulu rabies sudah ada atau semenjak alat-alat kedokteran makin maju ini saja?
SukaSuka
Ini peta waktu Rabies, dikutip dari: http://www.rabiesfree.org/page26.htm 🙂
2300 BC
Dog owners in the Babylonian city of Eshnunna are fined heavily for deaths caused by their dogs biting people.
800-700 BC
Homer likens Hector to a “raging dog” in The Iliad, one of the oldest Greek poems known today. He writes that Sirius, the dog star of Orion, “exerts a malignant influence upon the health of mankind”.
500 BC
Democritus, a Greek philosopher records a case of canine rabies.
400 BC
Aristotle writes that “dogs suffer from the madness. This causes them to become very irritable and all animals they bite become diseased.”
By now, the Greeks have two special rabies gods; one to prevent rabies, (Arisaeus, son of Apollo) and a one to heal rabies, (Artemis).
001-100 AD
Rabies is widespread across the Roman Empire, Greece and Crete.
The Roman Cardanus describes saliva from a rabid dog as a virus – the Latin word for poison.
Pliny the Elder also devises a series of treatments based around the idea that rabies is a tongue worm.
A Roman physician named Celsus
takes a special interest in rabies and discovers saliva alone contains
the virus. He recommends cleaning, sucking and burning (cauterizing) the
wound before leaving it open so the virus could drain out. This will
remain the only accepted treatment for the next 1800 years.
201-300
The treatment for rabies in cattle is described by early veterinary medicine writer, Vegetius Renatus.
501-600
Aetious, a Mesopotamian physician, writes an accurate description of dog rabies symptoms.
601-700
Greek physician, Paulus Aegineta records the difference between fatal hydrophobia caused by dog bites and simple hydrophobia stemming from a different cause.
801-900
Syrian
doctors believed hydrophobia was incurable. They helped suffering
patients by giving water disguised inside drops of honey.
Rhazes, (Al-Razi) a Persian physician identifies hydrophobia and further describes rabies symptoms in humans.
1001-1100
The writings of another Arab physician, Avicenna,
(Abu Ali Sina) mark a step forward in knowledge about the disease. His
books were used in European medical schools for nearly 500 years.
1026
Madness in dogs is recorded in the laws of Howel the Good, of Wales. This is the earliest record of rabies in Great Britain.
1198
Poisons and Their Antidotes, by Talmud scholar and physician Moses Maimonides, contains remedies against bites from mad dogs.
1271
First large rabies outbreak reported. 30 people
die after rabid wolves invade villages in Franconia (Germany).
1400
During the 15th century, Spain is ravaged by canine rabies
1500
During the 16th century, Christian Europeans
believe a patron saint named St. Hubert will cure rabies. Many travel to
his shrine at Liege, Belgium and die of ‘the madness’. Jean Gerson, a French theologian, speaks out against superstitious practices in religion.
1586
Canine rabies spreads through Flanders, (North Belgium) Austria, Turkey and Hungary.
1604
Rabies reaches Paris, causing panic.
1671
Superstitious practices for treating rabies are condemned by the Sorbonne.
1700
Rabies spreads through Europe during the 18th century.
1703
The first case of rabies is reported in the
Americas by a priest in Mexico. He is told off for raising the problem
by his superiors in Spain.
1734-5
Canine rabies appears in England.
1750
Rabies is reported in Barbados among dogs and
hogs. They are said to die around three days after getting sick.
1752
Orders to shoot dogs on sight are given in England when rabies appears around St. James, London.
1753
Canine rabies is present in the State of Virginia, North America.
1759-1762
Serious outbreak of rabies reported in
London. All dogs are confined for one month. Dogs on the street are
killed and a reward of 2 shillings per dog is offered. The reward
prompts barbaric scenes of killing in the streets.
1763
Serious rabies outbreaks reported in France,
Italy and Spain. Authorities slaughter dogs. In Madrid, Spain, 900 dogs
are killed in just one day.
1768-1771
Rabies breaks out in Boston and other North
American towns. Foxes and dogs carry the disease to farm animals. The
symptoms are unusual and rabies is reported as a new disease.
1774
Rabies is a general disease throughout England.
People are discouraged to keep dogs. Bigger rewards – up to five
shillings – are paid for each dog killed.
1776-1778
The French West Indies is invaded by rabies. Cattle and people are bitten by infected dogs.
1785-1789
Rabies is now common across North America.
1789
A New Yorker dies from hydrophobia after skinning an infected cow.
1790-1821
Rabies is common in France and Silesia
(now Poland and the Czech Republic). It spreads through wolves and foxes
in central Europe.
1797
Rabies appears on Rhode Island.
1800
Rabies becomes widespread in Northern, Western
and Eastern Europe during the 9th century. It is common in the Ukraine.
There are accounts of European villagers dying from contact with mad
wolves, foxes and dogs. There is also a reappearance of rabies in North
America and it moves up to Canada. And in England, it never goes away.
1803
Hundreds of dead foxes are spotted at the foot
of the Jura Alps, eastern France. This outbreak, the largest yet
recorded lasts for thirty years and wipes out all foxes in some areas,
terrifying villagers. In the same year, rabies appears in Peru for the
first time.
1804
Zinke, a German scientist demonstrates rabies is
passed through saliva by conducting experiments on animals.
1806
Dogs belonging to English officers introduce rabies to Argentina.
1810
Rabies reappears in eastern USA and Ohio.
1825
Rabies enters the Black Forest, Germany.
1835
Rabies appears in Chile and kills many.
1881
French chemist Louis Pasteur and his assistant, Physician-scientist Emile Roux, begin research on a cure for rabies.
1883
Roux presents a medical paper about the rabies
research he as been doing with Pasteur. Roux creates a rabies vaccine
from the spinal cord of an infected animal and tests it on dogs.
1885
Joseph Meister is mauled by a
rabid dog and brought to Pasteur. Pasteur gives him the rabies vaccine
immediately, despite the risks to his own career as he is not a doctor,
but a chemist. The treatment was successful, and Pasteur was hailed as a
hero.
1892
Canadian physician William Osler,
describes hydrophobia in a medical textbook. He recommends careful
washing and treatment of the wound. Osler is unaware of Pasteur’s
breakthrough.
1953
The first US case of rabies in a bat is reported by the CDC.
1959
Dr. Robert Kissling developed the fluorescent antibody test for rabies.
SukaSuka